Financial Innovation in Climate Resilience at Proadapt Conference

The financial sector is undergoing a transformation in the area of climate finance. Despite rapid change in technologies, policies and relative fossil fuel prices, markets are now able to identify and assess financially attractive projects in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Climate resilience, on the other hand, confronts investors with major uncertainties regarding the timing and magnitude of climate-related damages that complicate financial calculations and risk management practices.

Panelists who will discuss financial innovation include Jay Koh, who is a Managing Director at Siguler Guff & Company, a multi-strategy private equity investment firm with over $10 billion of assets under management. Jay Koh serves as a private sector expert on the Private Sector Advisory Group, which makes recommendations to the board of the Green Climate Fund in regard to its engagement with the private sector.

Another panelist is Dr. Barbara Buchner, who is Executive Director of the Climate Finance program at Climate Policy Initiative, and advises leaders on climate, energy, and land use investments around the world. Barbara was the lead author on CPI’s Global Landscape of Climate Finance, which has set the benchmark for climate finance tracking, and Climate Finance in 2013-14 and the USD 100 billion goal – a joint report with the OECD that played a seminal role in the lead up to the Paris Agreement. She also directs the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab).

Doris Arevalo Ordoñez is the Director of the Business Intelligence Department at Bancoldex and is responsible for their environmental strategy. She has more than 25 years of financial sector experience in Banco Real, now Scotiabank-Colpatria, Banco GNB Sudameris, and currently in Bancoldex, and she represents Bancoldex in Asobancaria’s GREEN PROTOCOL, in UNEP-FI and in the Financial Management Committee of SISCLIMA in Colombia.

Finally, the panel be moderated by Amal-Lee Amin, Chief of the Climate Change and Sustainability Division at the Inter-American Development Bank, where she manages an extensive portfolio of climate change adaptation, mitigation and knowledge activities for all of Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously, she had a leading role on design and implementation of the Climate Investment Funds from 2008 – 2010, and before that, she was Associate Director at E3G (Third Generation Environmentalism) leading a program on international climate finance.

Please visit our website to see other topics that are presented during the conference, at www.proadapt.org